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Thursday, March 22, 2012

Let's Free Up Our Creativity (On Renovating Slowly)

I'm a NY Times slideshow junkie. I love the perfect minimalist houses, the white space, the beautiful little things that they picked up in Turkey in '87. You know what I mean.

That longing for a house that measures up, that offers the perfect level of comfort, creativity, and minimalism while allowing Noah freedom to be awesome, the house that demonstrates our renovating vision and genius.

I've been gradually killing that desire, and it's been good. Eug is working on the bathroom on weekends, like the amazing visionary that he is, but I feel like if he didn't finish and our house looked insanely bad for an extended period, I'm still ok having people over. In fact, I want you to come over. And if you feel really uncomfortable with the bathroom, know that I was blogging or doing something else sortof productive (or not). I want you to be ok with mess and imperfection and even dirt, as much as I want myself to be ok with it.

In the simplicity movement, there are houses like ZeroWasteHome and others that just seem like these incredible havens of peace and design glory. And as Eug says, he got more work done when he took his laptop to Starbucks than to Burger King (sorry BK).

So we hope to make our house the best it can be. Someday. Maybe. Without the vision of a bigger better house. The whole attraction (for me, at least) of the simplicity and frugality and minimalism movements is that it frees up your life for better things- a life free of comparison and trying to keep up- which I think is in line with the good life Jesus would have for us (although I don't think you have to be a follower of Jesus to benefit). But then we get all into people's blogs and the NYTimes slideshows and Pinterest and we're right back in the world of comparison. I guess when we're following right we get inspired rather than envious.

Or maybe I'm just coping with the fact that I haven't showered in a week. Which isn't as bad as it sounds.